THE BLOOD OF HEROES

  1/  Descend Destroy                            (The Blood of Heroes)         4.50
      (Joel Hamilton + Submerged Remix)
  2/  Remain                                     (The Blood of Heroes)         5.18
      (Enduser Remix)
  3/  Chains                                     (The Blood of Heroes)         4.15
      (Dälek Remix)
  4/  Remain                                     (The Blood of Heroes)         6.29
      (Justin K Broadrick Remix)
  5/  Salute to the Jugger                       (The Blood of Heroes)         3.33
      (Bill Laswell Original Mix)
  6/  Wounds Against Wounds                      (The Blood of Heroes)         6.41
      (Kuma Remix)
  7/  Remain                                     (The Blood of Heroes)         3.35
      (The Blood of Heroes Rehearsal Version)
  8/  Transcendent                               (The Blood of Heroes)         9.07
      (Gator Bait Ten Remix)
  9/  Wounds Against Wounds                      (The Blood of Heroes)         7.51
      (Gunshae Remix)

          Original tracks recorded in Brooklyn NY, Washington DC, Wales UK, West
            Orange NJ, Budapest Hungary, Seattle WA and Jackson Heights NY
          Original tracks mixed by Joel Hamilton at Studio G, Brooklyn NY
          Track 5 mixed by Bill Laswell at Orange Sound, Orange, New Jersey
          Engineer on track 5: Robert Musso
          Assistant on track 5: James Dellatacoma
          Original tracks produced by Joel Hamilton and Submerged
          Executive Producer: The Cable Company

Justin Broadrick: guitars; Submerged: electronics (1,5,8), bass guitar (6,9); Enduser: electronics (2-9); Bill Laswell: bass guitar (1-5,7-9); Dr. Israel: vocals (1,5); Balazs Pandi: live drums (3,5); M. Gregor Filip: electronics (1,8), guitars (1,8).

          2010 - OHM Resistance (USA), 19M OHM (CD)

REVIEWS :

...The remix disc, Remain, doesn’t add that much to the music. It opens with a Joel Hamilton/Submerged mix of “Descend Destroy” that’s only about half as long as the original and chains it to a faster beat that saps much of the original’s crushing power. Similarly, the Enduser Remix of “Remain” takes away the dreamy, Jesu-esque guitars (the chugging metal riff does arrive at the two-minute mark), replacing them with synths and drill ‘n’ bass drum programming that create a distance the original piece was better off without. For highly structured, studio-based music, it had real emotional power, and this mix doesn’t. Fortunately, Broadrick gets to take a crack at “Remain” himself and turns it all the way into a Jesu track. Making it all the way through a Jesu album awake can be a trick, but in small doses that sound is extraordinarily heartfelt and beautiful. In between versions of “Remain,” Dälek attempt to turn “Chains” into a hip-hop track, and nearly succeed.

The disc also features two very different versions of “Wounds Against Wounds”; the Kuma Remix is beat-driven, with sampled vocals and grinding guitars; the disc-closing Gunshae’s Sunset Over English Bay Remix, by contrast, is a shimmering ambient instrumental like the sun rising over the post-apocalyptic landscape we’ve been exploring for most of the previous 45 minutes. There’s also a version of “Transcendent” that’s nine minutes long, as compared with the four-minute album version, which is another slow, hazy slab of beauty, albeit one underpinned by a monster Laswell bassline and a hypnotically minimal drum loop; and there’s one more take on “Remain,” this one a short and seemingly live rehearsal take, proving this could be a real live band if the members had enough time in their insane work schedules to get together and make it happen. Ultimately, Remain is as non-essential as every remix album ever, but it’s a nice addendum to the self-titled album, which is almost certainly destined to be the sole full-on release by this group, at least under this name (Laswell and Broadrick’s working relationship goes back 20 years, all the way to the guitarist’s guest spot on the second Pain Killer EP, Buried Secrets, in 1991). And if you like one, you’re sure to like the other, since none of these mixes radically reinvent the group’s sound—they just turn it slightly one way or another, exposing a different side.

Phil Freeman courtesy of the Burning Ambulance website)

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The Blood of Heroes self-titled debut album told a harrowing post-apocalyptic tale helmed by Submerged and Bill Laswell and narrated by singer Dr. Israel. Remain is its remix companion and emerges from the debris at least as strong as its progenitor.

In tandem with Submerged, noted Studio G producer Joel Hamilton opens belligerently by mounting a machine-gun guitar up front of "Descend Destroy". Enduser's version of "Remain" features an elegiac synthesizer melody backed up by his usual heavy, judiciously-chosen rhythms. Always genre-defiant Dälek slow things down to a scavenging creep among the wreckage in a fitting sci-fi tone.

All of the core contributors to the original have provided a remix and Justin K. Broadrick goes them all one better by providing his own vocals on the grinding rock song he turns the title track into. Bill Laswell's "Salute to the Jugger" continues the juggernaut guitar theme at its nastiest. While Dr. Israel has almost disappeared in the mixes by the others, Laswell is careful to broadcast his original lyrics loud and clear.

Kuma's "Wounds Against Wounds" has a nice, woody feel. Gator Bait Ten, a new group featuring Submerged and Blood of Heroes session man M. Gregor Filip, floats "Transcendent" over nearly ten minutes. After Kuma, Gunshae is the second unknown British Columbian to remix "Wounds Against Wounds", taking us out with his lovely "Sunset over English Bay" remix, which really does resemble eventide overlooking that Vancouver bay.

Also included is a bloody serious "rehearsal version" of "Remain". Not only an excellent companion, but a stand-out, stand-alone album in its own right.

Stephen Fruitman (courtesy of Sonomu website)